


The Adventure Of The Uncovered Asses (1877)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [11]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Archaeology, Dark Ages, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Framing Story, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, The Romans, Theft, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 02:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10480458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Case 7: Holmes and Watson travel to Hampshire (where a green-eyed M.D. does NOT have a strop!), and an archaeological dig which has resulted in an attempted theft.The title? Read on and find out!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookworm4ever81](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm4ever81/gifts).



> Mentioned elsewhere as 'the Andover case' (a publisher's error; I actually wrote 'the Andyke case').

It was the start of another year, and he country was still adjusting itself to our dear old queen's new title, Empress of India. Thankfully England had learnt the painful and unnecessary lesson of the loss of its American colonies, and now treated at least some of its overseas possessions as sister-nations rather than mere subjects, although I could foresee the day being not far off when the people therein, having been brought up to our level of civilization, would want to run their own affairs. But that was all for the future, and for now, we had another case.

+~+~+

I would not have thought it possible for my friend's unruly hair to get itself into an even worse state, but I had seemingly underestimated both him and the strong south wind blowing across the Hampshire fields, seemingly intent on trying to blow us back to the small town of Whitchurch, whence we had come. We were being driven to the Andyke, an ancient earthwork and, according to what we had been told, scene of a modern theft. Our driver and host was one Mr. Peter Goodfellow, an affable flaxen-haired fellow of about thirty years of age.

“As I am sure you gentlemen are aware”, he said, “the idea of a lady archaeologist, even in this day and age, raised more than a few eyebrows when Miss Sutherland joined our 'dig'. Several of the older members were quite shocked as she is, er, a little modern in her approach to matters. But she had worked as hard as any of them, which is why this while business has come as quite a shock to us all.”

“Tell us about the 'dig', please”, Holmes said. 

“Hampshire was where the ancient West Saxon kingdom, forerunner to England, was founded”, our host said. “As you might have expected, the native Celts did not give up without a fight. When the West Saxon King Cerdic tried to fight his way up the River Test, they used a combination of hill-forts and earthworks to block his way. Or to try to; he overcame them all soon enough, from what we have found. There are of course no written records from those times, which is why our work is so important.”

“The earthwork we are working on is known as the Andyke, possibly from an old word referring to giants as the works are so big. It seems that the old king took the small Roman settlement at Leucomagus, just north of Andover, and the Celts fell back to their defensive line here. It was almost their last stand; once he was across the dyke, he could effectively surround his target, his future capital at Winchester, on three sides. We think that the dyke was held for some time before it fell.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked. I did not normally take much interest in such things, but the young fellow's enthusiasm was infectious. 

“That's what brings me to Miss Sutherland”, he said grimly. “You see, we have found buried coins and things in the old towns and sometimes in the old villas, but this was the first time we actually found a bag of Roman coins in an earthwork. It seems an odd place to hide something.”

“I would have thought it sounded fairly safe”, I said. Holmes tutted at me.

“Watson, such earthworks were like the outer part of a castle wall”, he said. “The defenders would have been based close by, so they could be summonsed to defend it when the attack came. You would not place your worldly goods where the enemy could advance to within yards of it, even thought they might not be aware of its proximity.”

Show-off, I thought.

Was he shaking his head at me? He was, damnation!

+~+~+

I have to say that the Andyke did not overly impress me. I suppose that over thirteen centuries were bound to inflict some wear and tear, but it seemed like just a large ditch cutting across the landscape, through which the London to Exeter road had been thrust at one point. Our host obviously caught my disappointment.

“It would have been much higher, with a far deeper ditch in its day”, he explained, “and have been backed with a defensive wooden palisade. A mile or so south it blocks the Dever Valley, which was the way King Cerdic would have wanted to advance.”

“How did the trouble concerning Miss Sutherland arise?” Holmes asked. 

“We all have digs in the nearest large village, Sutton Scotney”, our host explained. “When Mark - Mr. Chilton - uncovered the coins, they were taken to the room we have in the pub there, where we keep our finds and plan the 'dig'. The next day, they had gone – and someone started a rumour that the bag was in Miss Sutherland's room. It turned out to be true.”

“Were the coins verified?” Holmes asked. Our host looked surprised.

“We were going to have an expert come down and check them”,he said, a little defensively, I thought. “He was due down this weekend, in fact. I looked at them, and they seemed genuine enough.”

“And now they are gone”, Holmes said. “Interesting.”

“But we do have some rubbings”, Mr. Goodfellow said. “I took some of five of the coins, and I still have those. Would you like to see them?”

“I would”, Holmes said. “Once we are in out of this wind, that is. Tell me about the man who found them.”

For some reason, our host winced.

“Mark”, he said. “That was why I called you in, sir. You see, his cousin is the fellow who is funding the whole dig from his own pocket, Peter, Lord Candover. And Mr. Chilton – well, he was engaged to Miss Sutherland not so long back, but it did not work out.”

“Who broke it off?” Holmes asked. A rather personal question, I thought, and our host was clearly surprised at it.

“I believe that he did”, he said. “They got together because of their shared interest in archaeology, and her coming down here after him – well, it was dashed awkward!”

“And you said that Mr. Chilton was the one who found the coins in the first place”, I said. I could see where this was heading.

"Yes", our host said.

“Were any other coins or such found on the site?” Holmes asked.

“Only one”, our host said. “I should have mentioned, there was a small hole in the bag, and this one small coin had fallen out and been separated from the others. I have it here.”

He produced a small box from his pocket and handed it to Holmes, who examined it closely.

“Interesting”, he said. “Are you a student of Roman history, sir?”

“No”, Mr. Goodfellow admitted. “The Dark Ages is my special field. I do not suppose that one coin tells you much.”

Holmes passed the coin to me to examine, and I did so. It was small, unremarkable, and in faded writing I could just make out 'POSTUMUS'. 

“Possibly named for a son born after his father had died”, I said. “Presumably he was emperor at the time that the coin was minted. It is quite unremarkable.”

“On the contrary”, Holmes said. “This coin is an _as_ , and it is a key element to establishing the guilty party in this case.”

We both stared at him.

+~+~+

Once we were back at Whitchurch, Holmes immediately went out to dispatch a telegram to someone or other, and on his return, he asked to see the rubbings that the archaeologist had made of the lost coins. He seemed quite excited by one that had been done in the reign of the great Augustus for some reason, and questioned our host on what he remembered of that coin. He also questioned him quite closely about the bag that the coins had come in, before letting him depart for his supper.

“Why were you so interested in the bag, rather than the coins in it?” I asked. “Surely the bag is worth nothing?”

He shook his head at me.

“You do not see it, Watson”, he said. “Empathize, for a moment; put yourself in the shoes of some sub-Roman landowner in the sixth century, facing possible ruin. First, are you really going to hide your wealth on the very front line against the enemy, the first place that they will overrun? And secondly, my interest in the bag was because it was a bag.”

“Pardon?”

“Someone rich enough to have thirty or more coin is not going to entrust the to some tatty leather pouch”, Holmes said disdainfully. “That would be the act of an imbecile!”

I reddened at not having spotted that, and turned away from him. Belatedly, he seemed to realize that he had offended me.

“I am sorry, friend”, he said quietly. “I would not do this without you, you know that.”

“I am going out for a walk”, I said stiffly. “I will see you later.”

“But supper is in ten minutes”, he pointed out.

“Oh rot! I am not hungry.”

I left, feeling quite cross with him.

+~+~+

I had, of course, lied. I arrived back an hour later absolutely ravenous, and wondering if I could slip down and cadge some food without Holmes knowing. I was no sooner in the room, however, than he smiled that awful smile of his ate me. I could feel my resolve melting like a lump of ice-cream in a furnace.

“Good, you are back”, he said. “And I am sorry for being so rude to you earlier, Watson. I sent down to delay our dinner until your return, so I will go down now and let them know to send it up.”

I blushed. That had been good of him. I knew enough of my own character to know that, had the roles been reversed, I might well have let him starve as a punishment.

Who was I kidding? One more look from those blue eyes, and I would have done what I was told. I was so whipped!

+~+~+

The following day, we met Miss Mary Sutherland. I cannot say that she overly impressed me; she seemed to be striving far too hard to be a Modern Woman, and whilst I appreciated that a lady could hardly work on a 'dig' in a full dress, she was clearly aiming to be 'one of the boys'. 

“I have no idea how that pouch got there”, she said angrily. “Besides, why would I take it? I can hardly hawk it around London, can I?”

“I am sure that you know as well as I”, Holmes said smoothly, “that there are many collectors willing to pay a high price to acquire what their rivals have not, regardless of any legal niceties involved. Many of the rich consider that laws are, as they would say, for the little people.”

She glared at him.

“I do not move in such circles, sir”, she said loftily. “Besides, if you are the detective that they say you are, then you will know that I have not been charged, nor will I ever be!”

I wondered at her assuredness on that point. Holmes just smiled strangely at her, and we left.

+~+~+

“Why was she so confident about not being charged?” I asked him. “The facts look very bad against her.”

“For one thing, she believes that the archaeologists in charge of the 'dig' will not wish for the publicity”, he said. “And doubtless she is waiting for the surprise witness to emerge, and clear her name.”

I stared suspiciously at him.

“You are guessing!” I said accusingly. He stared at me in mock offence.

“I never 'guess'”, he said loftily. “Today or tomorrow, she will be cleared, and the spotlight will turn on someone else.”

Holmes was clever, but this, time, I was sure, he had overstepped the mark.

+~+~+

When would I learn? We met with Mr. Goodfellow barely an hour later, and he was brimming with news.

“You will not believe it, sir”, he said. “Miss Sutherland is in the clear! A surprise witness has come forward!”

I was not sure what annoyed me more; the straight face that Holmes maintained when I glared at him, or the very slight smirk that I caught just as I turned away. Harrumph!

“What witness?” I asked.

“One of the serving-girls at the pub was going to her room, and saw Mr. Chilton going into Miss Sutherland's room”, he said excitedly. “She did not say anything about it at the time, because.... well, you know.”

“No, I do not know”, Holmes said innocently. “What?”

I prodded him.

“Do not be mean, Holmes!” I chided. “So the two of them were back together, I take it?”

Mr. Goodfellow shook his head.

“She knew Miss Sutherland was downstairs at the time, because she had just left her”, he said. “And Mr. Chilton was carrying a small pouch – which was not there when he emerged!”

“A most observant young wench”, Holmes smiled. “What is her name? I would like to ask her more about this belated observation of hers.”

“May. She is the red-headed one.”

“I shall go and see her at once”, Holmes said, rising to his feet. “I will join you again shortly.

“He had better watch out”, Mr. Goodfellow said. “That May is a character and then some. I would not out it past her to inveigle any adult male into her chamber, including your friend.”

For some reason, that thought made me feel very uneasy.

+~+~+

Holmes re-appeared, but was intercepted by a boy with a telegram as he approached to where I and Mr. Goodfellow had been joined by Mr. Chilton, a wiry dark-haired fellow of about twenty-five years of age. I noted that my friend's appearance looked even more dishevelled than usual, and grimaced inwardly at the thought of him and that female... ugh! He deserved so much better.

“The case is concluded”. Holmes said, taking a seat. “I have asked Miss Sutherland to join us, and we can set about bringing justice upon those who merit it.”

I was sure that one of the two men with us flinched, though I did not see which one. Fortunately we only had to wait a couple of minutes before Miss Sutherland, thankfully wearing some rather more feminine attire, joined us, pointedly sitting as far away as possible from Mr. Chilton. Holmes thanked her for coming, and began.

“There are three parts to this case”, he said. “Indeed, for what started out like a theft of some old coins, it has blossomed quite remarkably into something much larger. And one of the three of you here will be facing some unpleasant consequences as a result.”

I was sure that they all shuffled in their seats at that.

“The first thing that struck me”, Holmes said, “was not the coins, but the pouch that they came in. Why would our Dark Ages Celtic nobleman have a haul with so much, yet not be able to afford at least a cheap metal box to protect his money. I commented on this somewhat harshly to my friend the doctor here, who reacted quite justifiably, and in doing so demonstrated my own stupidity.”

“I did?” I asked, surprised. He nodded.

“You said, 'oh rot'”, he said. “I immediately thought back to the chalky ground in which the pouch was found. Water drains through chalk very easily, and would surely have rotted away any pouch, even one made of leather, in the millennium or more that it had purportedly been there. That was the second fact that suggested the coins themselves were fakes.”

“Fakes? Mr. Chilton asked, alarmed. “How the hell could you know that?”

Holmes fixed him with a look.

“I dispatched a number of telegrams to London after my visit to the site yesterday”, he said. “One of them was to request from a historian friend the dates of all the Roman Emperors, as well as certain other information. The small coin that had slipped out of the pouch was one of the Emperor Postumus – and it was very obviously a fake.”

We all stared at him.

“How could you know that?” I asked.

“Because someone simply took a list of all the emperors, extracted some names at random from different eras, and had fake asses – yes, Watson, that is the plural – made.”

Look, I had not sniggered that much!

“However”, Holmes went on. “Postumus was actually not a Roman Emperor at all. He ruled a breakaway part of the superstate, the so-called Gallic Empire that included Britain - but he did not issue any coins in his time. My belief was later reinforced by Mr. Goodfellow's rubbings, which showed a second of the lost coins to be from Emperor Augustus.”

“Well, he was definitely real”, I said. Holmes smiled.

“He was”, he said, “but he was also a reformer. Mr. Goodfellow confirmed that the coin he took the rubbing from was a copper one like the rest, but Augustus made his asses from bronze.”

He looked pointedly at me, clearly expecting another snigger. I managed to keep a straight face, despite all the 'asses'. I might slip away later and...

I was sure Holmes was shaking his head slightly as he continued.

“Suspecting this subterfuge, I asked an acquaintance of mine who specializes in high-quality forgeries as to whether anyone he knew had been asked to create a set of old Roman coins of late. He duly obliged; an acquaintance of his had been asked by a young fellow with dark hair to do just that.”

Everyone's eyes turned on Mr. Chilton, who reddened.

“I have no idea what you are talking about”, he said defensively.

“The unfortunate thing was”, Holmes said, “that forgers require the very best senses for their trade. The man who created those coins had not only excellent eyesight, but a sharp sense of smell. And he was a little confused as to why the young man who requested had his services was seemingly wearing the same lavender-based perfume favoured by his good lady wife.”

We all turned to look across at Miss Sutherland. She tossed her head at us, but said nothing.

“You decided that you were not the sort of person to be so lightly tossed aside by Mr. Chilton here”, Holmes said softly. “You planted those coins for him to find, and then you placed them in his room. The serving-girl, whom you recompensed adequately but not enough, was more than willing to admit her role in the set-up once she realized that she herself could go to jail. Not, I might add, that it stopped her from trying to flatter her way out of the entanglement by means of her own wiles.”

So she had failed to entrap my friend. Hah!

“”I have done nothing legally wrong”, Miss Sutherland said. “And you will not be taking me to court.”

“Why will we not?” Mr. Chilton asked angrily.

“Because for one thing, you would need to know her real name”, Holmes said. “Miss Mary Sutherland is in fact Miss Maria McEwan, cousin to the Duke of Sutherland. And for all the good works that that man has done, especially in his native Highlands, he does not deserve to be tarred by the same brush as his blood.”

Miss Sutherland grinned triumphantly.

“However”, Holmes said sharply, “whilst a case for entrapment would be difficult to prove, there is the not insignificant matter of impersonation.”

We all looked at him in confusion, but I noticed that the woman had gone rather pale.

“The noble Duke granted a generous allowance to Miss Sutherland's father, his cousin Mr. Reynold McEwan” Holmes explained. “It is the practice of noble families to support offspring some distance from the main branch, and the allowance was to expire on Mr. McEwan's death. Which the good duke will doubtless find surprising, as that happened some five years ago, and the letters he has been receiving ever since, thanking him for his munificence, have all been written by the dead man's daughter masquerading as him. Fortunately the duke has now been corrected in that mistaken impression, and doubtless his lawyers have already been instructed to pursue the 'lady' here for the return of all the moneys that she fraudulently obtained.”

How Miss Sutherland managed to get from a sitting position to throw herself against Holmes, screaming a whole set of unrepeatable and quite inventive obscenities, I do not know. The three of us pulled her off, and the two archaeologists hustled her away.

+~+~+

“I am just glad to be getting away from here”, I said, as we waited outside for the cab Holmes had ordered to take us to the station. “And especially that dreadful serving-girl. She was only after one thing!”

His smile was far too knowing, and the silence far too long. I stared at him suspiciously.

“You did not... did you?” I asked.

“Did not what, Watson?” he grinned.

I glared at him.

“I did not”, he reassured me. “But I find your reaction... interesting.”

I decided then and there that I did not like him, after all. Fortunately our cab came at that very moment and spared him from my disapproval. We were soon off, and I wondered a little at the extravagance of having a cab for what was little more than a mile's walk.

I was wondering rather more when, instead of heading to the station, we took the road south out of the small town, and passed a mile-stone that told us we were some fifty-nine miles from London and twelve from Winchester.

“Where are we going?” I asked, confused. “Another case already?”

He looked sheepishly at me, which worried me all the more.

“You said how much you enjoyed looking round ancient cathedrals and old churches”, he said. “And you mentioned over dinner how your grandmother's maiden name had been Winchester, and how you had always wanted to see the cathedral in that city one day.”

I stared at him in surprise. He had remembered!

“Thank you”, I muttered, embarrassed at my sudden incoherence. He smiled his small, gummy smile at me, and we drove on in a contented silence.

+~+~+

In our next case, someone learns the hard way that they really should be careful what they wish for.


End file.
